>... any disclosure of information gained form (sic)
> participating in the Public Challenge would be
> outside of the scope of the activities
> permitted by the Agreement and could subject
> you and you research team to actions under the
> Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA").
(Extract from a letter to Prof. Felten, on RIAA letterheaded paper, dated April 9 2001).
Is there some specific legal definition of a threat, or does actually threatening someone count?:)
> but the editor at first was the one separating good studies from stupid ones...
True, but sometimes not true enough.:) When I was at uni (humble undergrad) I joined one of the many reading groups run by academic staff in their "spare" time. We would pick papers relevant to the work of various group members (students and staff alike), make sure everyone had the background information they needed, and spent an hour or so picking through recently published papers.
On maybe one occasion in three, we came to the conclusion that "this shouldn't have been published"; "This was clearly written up from a grant proposal"; "We did this last year and *we* got it to work", and so on.
On the other hand, if it weren't for "dodgy" journals, a lot of final-year student projects wouldn't find their way into conference proceedings - a really good morale booster for overworked, underpaid students!
I think they've done the right thing. Bringing the barriers to access down is a good thing. Hell, if they want free access with a perr-reviewed ratings system, they could always use Slashcode...
Woohoo! Now, when I receive my bank statement / credit card demand / birthday cards / electricity bill about FOUR DAYS AFTER IT WAS POSTED from a town TWNETY MILES AWAY, I'll be able to interact with an inch-square piece of paper stuck to the front of it.
Whoever thought this was a good way to spend money was a fool. Give it to our postmen, who are constantly striking because they're paid pittance.
This is even more depressing, because this time the company running the service has pre-empted the government pressure to shut down, and gone ahead and done it before the lawyers arrive.
Eek. DOes anyone else get the feeling that the terrorists might actually be winning?
> "The Nation's communications networks are
> routinely used in the commission of serious
> criminal activities, including espionage."
Hmmm. So which large autonomous governmental organisations can we think of who do this...:)
> "The Carnivore device provides the FBI with
> a "surgical" ability to intercept and collect
> the communications which are the subject of the
> lawful order while ignoring those
> communications which they are not authorized to
> intercept."
Sure, it's surgical... in the same way that multiple amputations are surgical...
> > OK, I know governments can tax whatever they
> > want, whenever they want.
> no, they can't, as this story illustrates
Erm... it was the government that made the decision to declare the tax invalid. A less sensible government might well have decided the other way. Governments *make* the laws, remember. That's why we vote for them.
> this may be the moral justification for those
> taxes, but economically it doesn't work
In the case of addictive substances, no it doesn't work. But as you say, the policy-makers can use it as a powerful justification (moral highground AND economic sense to the uninitiated - NOW how much would you pay?):)
> Fuel taxes don't really fall into this category
> in the long run
Burning petrolium in vehicles is bad for the environment and for society - thus, it should be taxed appropriately. I don't own a car because it's too expensive. Many of my friends own cars, but often use public transport instead because of the cost of fuel. (I am in England, where fuel is taxed about three times more than in the US.) I think the categorisation stands up fairly well, myself. The more you hurt the environment, the more you should pay (whether the money should go to the Government is a different matter:)).
> Property should not be taxed, of course
No "of course" about it. Are you suggesting that indirect taxation is inferior to income taxes? In this country, the local authorities levy taxes on homeowners and businesses, in order to pay for local services (fire, police, landscaping, big cars for council executives, and so on).
> The flaw here is in thinking that "pure greed"
> is a bad thing
Did I say that? No. You haven't answered my original question - what is the justification? Satellites are almost always a social good, and companies who have the resources to put them into space should not be discouraged from doing so. If they bring in revenue for a local company, then in all likelihood that revenue is being taxed somewhere else.
OK, I know governments can tax whatever they want, whenever they want. But there's usually a reason. For example, property taxes pay for local amenities and police. Vehicle taxes pay for the upkeep of roads and traffic signals, and the building of new ones. Direct taxes such as income tax and corporation tax pay for lots of stuff, mainly public goods such as defence, civil servants' wages, etc.
The other main use of taxation is as a disincentive to some activity or other (such as smoking and drinking, or in the case of fuel taxation, driving).
Why tax satellites? The space they orbit in requires no expenditure to maintain, and there's no reason to try putting people off launching satellites, because it costs many millions of pounds/dollars.
Apart from pure greed, what's the justrification behind such a proposal?
> WorldCom said it will operate Rhythms' network
> assets in 31 markets and will have the right to
> use assets in 709 telephone companies' central
> offices and at Rhythms' Englewood, Colorado
> headquarters.
Sounds to me like they got a good deal. DSL is not a long-term solution to broadband access provision, so you might immediately think "why would anyone voluntarily lumber themselves with a soon-to-be-obsolete infrastructure?". But the right of access to all that existing CO plant is worth a lot more to them. They'll be grateful of it once they move beyond the limits of the current twisted pair local loop.
This theory seems more plausible for the fact that most (all?) of Rhythm's customers have already left the service. Usually when one service provider takes over from another they inherit some sort of customer base, goodwill etc... but in this case, there is little (none?).
In the meantime, they can probably make back most of that money by getting themselves organised and charging a sensible price for DSL. But I rather fear that too many customers have already got burned and will switch to cable, or wait for fibre, or even just wait to see what the market looks like in a years time (that's the attitute that *really* pisses off telcos!).
Of course if I'd read to the bottom of the article, I'd have noticed that Sony themselves have release a Linux development kit, primarily for games developers. Seems rather out of character.
I don't suppose there's a driver for the BBA ethernet card currently existing; that seems to be the next logical step. Once the TCP/IP stack's up and running, things take off.
Also... much more interesting was the report in June e.g.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1 371000/1371527.stm
that you can do the same thing on the Playstation. Anyone know how long it'll be before the PS-2 has Linux support? And after that, how long till Sony ban this sort of thing?
Of course, I've never seen a Dreamcast at all - can you plug a keyboard into one of those things? 'cos I'm sure not doing any kernel hacking if I've got to enter letters off a rotating wheel using only left-right cursor movements on a control pad. That gave me enough trouble entering my initials in the arcades?
It's easy to get confused about quantum computers, because the media hype doesn't take into account the fact that you need at least two degrees (comp sci and physics) to understand it properly... guess what, I don't have these! But I do have the first, and my girlfriend has the second.:-)
Quantum cryptography itself is not an algorithm as such, but a way of using the inherent uncertainty in the polarisation of photons to ensure completely private communication. There are some labs which claim to have such a scheme working, but it's a long way from becoming feasible on a large scale.
Basically, it works on the principle that observation changes the observed event. You can ensure a secure (non-eavesdropped) channel by makeing sure that every photon has arrived correctly. If an intruder has observed your message, then the message itself has changed (at the quantum level)! I'm really not sure how it all works either, but there is plenty of published work.
The other crypto-related quantum computing thing is Shor's algorithm. For a reasonably good explanation:
http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~nd/surprise_97/journal/ vo l4/spb3/
In essence, factorisation of large numbers (which is an NP complete problem on conventional hardware) can be done really quickly. This threatens RSA, Diffie-Hellman etc (anything which relies on the non-factorability of products of large primes).
I expect there's a similar "quantum" attack on symmetric encryption schemes like IDEA and DES, which would just do very fast brute force searches on the key space.
> Are they putting a gun to your head and
> saying "buy our next round of products or die
> Scum!"?
They don't have to. They know that the vast majority of businesses cannot afford to switch away from their products, because they'll lose compatibility with the rest of the world.
All they have to do is subtly drop support for all their products which are older than, say, three years, and people are effectively forced to upgrade.
They say "everyone wants a common platform" and "it's just what happens with technological progress". We have other names for it;-)
See for example: http://www.e-vue.com/about/may072001.cfm
One of the ways in which the MP4 standard is quite dumb is that the "security" features are an optional extra. You don't have to have lots of ornate key management policies and encrpytion schemes in order to enjoy the benefits of increased compression/versatility/whatever.
But (as we all know, I guess) that'll never work the way they think it should. This is simply because so long as there is an "insecure" standard for exchanging content (alongside the secured version), people who rip stuff off and share it with their friends will use it. The only ways you can stop that are: (a) pass an unenforcable law like the DMCA, or (b) get rid of all "insecure" standards. Solution b is not workable because everyday life would grind to a halt if everything had to be authenticated with military-grade encrpytion. So we're stuck with the laws (which, incidentally, don't necessarily go away once the companies which bought them go bust).
My conclusion is, therefore, by all means adopt MPEG-4 because in almost every other way, it rocks. Don't be scared by the "rights management" bullshit, because as long it's optional, it's worthless.
--
anonymous CVS: geeks check in - they don't check out
Actually, the incentive is still there. These people love what they do. It makes for good conversation... "So what do you do?" - "I design equipment for satellites" or "I get data beamed from a spacecraft millions of miles away straight to my desk/printer". You get your name in print in respected journals. You get to be a rocket scientist. The last thing you want is people going into research scientists in order to make money. Let's just say that would attract the wrong sort of person.:)
But you're right, it's scandalous what some of the most intelligent and highly qualified people get paid. And it's a real *dis*-incentive for prospective graduates. If you could earn $80,000 writing Visual BASIC code for a bank, or sit in a dingy office with five other students (who probably smell) for $10,000 a year of government grant followed by having the career prospects of a cranefly, what ya gonna do?
(Bear in mind that I have no idea about the American scientific labour market, just the UK. And I'm translating currency very carelessly.:))
I'm sure there are plenty of ways to justify the $12m bill - the ground operation will already be fairly immense, and keeping it running costs money (admin staff, office space, hefty electricity bills etc). Mainly, I expect it goes to consultants and contractors, and on purchasing hardware from "military approved" vendors (i.e. the expensive ones).
In this country (UK), a post-doctoral space scientist at a top academic institution probably earns around 20,000 pounds PA if they're lucky (that's about $30,000, I think). If you consider that they'll be employed for maybe three years doing the data analysis and planning the next comet missions, a team of 20 scientists would account for $1.8m.
So I can see (almost) where they get the figure from. And it's probably quite easy to convince the funding bodies (is that the US public? I don't know how NASA do things) that comets are already lining up to take aim at the Earth, and we must learn more about them so we can work out a defence mechanism... sounds insane, but that's how a lot of science gets funded nowadays.
Me? I'd rather they built some hospitals in Africa.
When building the trunk networks (at least in the UK), most of the telcos have had close links with an existing utility, so their fibre backbones run along the railway, electricity grid, etc. When they install fibre-based SDH they do it alongside the existing (obsolete) copper-based PDH equipment, which also saves them a fortune. It makes sense to do the same thing with the access network (local loop) too.
The problem over here is that the broadband rollout has only just started, it's not going very fast and it's unlikely to be nationwide for several years. And it's mostly being done using xDSL technology, to avoid having to lay any new infrastructure. Now xDSL is the least future-proof technology I have ever seen, and most of the telcos will admit this. Sure, they'll eventually lay fibre all the way to the curbside, and maybe into the home, but they insist on using the DSL stopgap solution.
I doubt very much that they will be using robots to do anything over here - it is still a notoriously lo-tec industry, whatever they try and tell you.:)
They had suggested using the existing electricity distribution system (actually transmitting over the same copper which carries the mains voltage), but they hit a snag - lamp-posts!! Because the best frequencies to use on copper (in terms of attenuation) just happen to co-incide with AM radio, and lamp-posts act as a big antenna... so all local AM radio would be screwed up. (Not that anyone would notice;-))
Enjoy... I've heard Sutherland speak and he's done some very interesting things; most notably, he invented the method of "logical effort" for the sizing of transistors, without which CPUs would be several orders of magnitude harder to optimise than they are today.
Re:Sounds like a good idea, but..
on
The Dot in .mars
·
· Score: 2
Hang on, did I hear that right?
We can't think of a practical purpose for the ability to communicate arbitrary information between two different PLANETS with an 8-minute delay?
There are still lots of practical uses of first-class mail, which takes about a day to deliver non-arbitrary information 50 miles!
It's certainly a situation which terrestrial communications haven't had to face up to very much; even current satellite relays only give a delay of a few seconds. The increased latency means you have to use better FEC techniques rather than relying on an ARQ retransmission system, but the basic principles are still due to Shannon (RIP).
Most of the trouble faced by communications software and hardware stems from operating in a regime of limited bandwidth or continuously changing router loading, rather than high delays. But as the article points out, scientists have adressed these problems on previous space missions, and the techniques are firming up to make the whole thing more interoperable.
Now we just need to work out how to colonise the planet, before we completely destroy our own one:-\
As a non-earning musician, and a buyer of / listener to music, I cannot believe the approach the RIAA (et al) are taking to the "protection" of "their" intellectual "property".
There's lots of call for technology to protect information, because anything in digital format now has to be treated as extremely volatile - once it gets "out", there's no getting it back in. Here's a few examples of places where copy protection could be (but isn't) used:
* Governments & the military would dearly love to be able to keep their secrets from falling into the wrong hands. How do they do this? They try their hardest to hire responsible people they can TRUST and implement a strict heirarchy of control. Most countries have laws forbidding the betrayal of military secrets. They use encryption techniques. But they couldn't do their jobs efficiently if any sensitive material was copy-protected.
* Medical Records and other personal information - you don't want this falling into the wrong hands, but so long as you TRUST people (doctors) to keep it in the right hands, there's no problem and everyone can get on with their work.
* Examination Papers - if you're a lecturer/teacher and you prepare your examination digitally, you'll be wanting to ensure they're protected from the prying eyes of your students. In order to be used, you have to duplicate them.
So where do the record companies come in? Their product, I would argue, needs to be duplicated in order to be used (under the current concept of fair use); but they treat their customers as if each and every one of them is a criminal!
I don't object to paying for music - if I don't, I won't be provided with any more:). I further don't object paying for the distribution of the music to me (e.g. to my ISP). But it costs me about 17ukp for a CD (for those not in England, that's about the cost of 20 2L bottles of soft drink:-))! Something has to change.
I want free music, as in free speech. The technology exists to give it to me. The artists are happy to be heard, I'm happy to hear. But not everyone feels the same way. Most people are too used to the media selectively supplying them with whatever information they deem appropriate. They think they have choice, because they have 20 TV channels to watch! They don't see their freedom being undermined, and they won't buck the trend because they actually believe the big record producers' propoganda!
http://www.opencores.org/
Open source hardware.
It's always going to be aimed at the people who buy semiconductor IP off vendors like ARM, and incorporate it into their designs. If they can get the VHDL source for free, rather than having to pay royalties every time they manufacture...
Of course it's not aimed at joe@public.com.
Re:I'm sure this is all wrong
on
Plastic Valley?
·
· Score: 1
Wires in macroscopic devices (even tiny ones) are maybe 0.1mm wide.
Level 1 metal in a 0.18 micron CMOS process is 0.0008mm wide.
They're very different ball games.
I don't believe a word of this. The hard and expensive part of making a chip is photolithography and ion-implantation, i.e. actually building a circuit on top of the subtrate. The reason that silicon is the most commonly used bulk for making chips isn't really because it is a "good" semiconductor - it's not at all! (Although its oxide SiO2 has some desirable properties which make the etching process easier to do on a large scale.)
The reason they use silicon is because IT'S CHEAP! IT IS JUST (refined) SAND! Far better would be Gallium Arsenide or some similar compound. But that is orders of magnitude more expensive to do in volume (at the moment).
Flexible circuits?!? I'll believe that when I see it. You couldn't make any IC without using metal layers to route busses around at the higher levels (note: the metal which carries signals around between the transistors is a conductor, NOT a semiconductor!). So, until they find a substance which is flexible, a good conductor at operating temperatures AND which you can deposit on the rough surface of a thin wafer with deep sub-micron accuracy...
...I wouldn't invest in any startups claiming to pioneer this technology without reading the small print.:)
The problem is, you can't compare the processing power of a human brain with that of a computer - they're just too different. The machine I'm sitting at can do about 400,000,000 floating point multiplications in one second - that's more than I could do if I started now and didn't stop for the rest of my life!
But it can't post intelligently on slashdot;-)
I've had experience with AI and agent systems, and I still reckon that the place of a computer is as a tool for the human race, to do things that we can't do ourselves (see above). Just my 2c.
Of course, it won't be long before things have to go asynchronous - hyper-pinelining is all very well if you've got a nice clean architecture in the first place but it's not doing the 80x86 any real favours.
People like Ivan Sutherland put a lot of work into the theories of asynchronous digital logic, indeed many array-based multipliers found in current uPs are locally asynchronous. Merging clock and data signals can make the control logic a lot more complicated, but do it properly and you can get certain functions going blindingly fast.
But of course without a MHz figure, the customers won't know what to buy...:)
Slashdot Mirror
How about:
... any disclosure of information gained form (sic)
:)
>
> participating in the Public Challenge would be
> outside of the scope of the activities
> permitted by the Agreement and could subject
> you and you research team to actions under the
> Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA").
(Extract from a letter to Prof. Felten, on RIAA letterheaded paper, dated April 9 2001).
Is there some specific legal definition of a threat, or does actually threatening someone count?
> but the editor at first was the one separating good studies from stupid ones...
:) When I was at uni (humble undergrad) I joined one of the many reading groups run by academic staff in their "spare" time. We would pick papers relevant to the work of various group members (students and staff alike), make sure everyone had the background information they needed, and spent an hour or so picking through recently published papers.
True, but sometimes not true enough.
On maybe one occasion in three, we came to the conclusion that "this shouldn't have been published"; "This was clearly written up from a grant proposal"; "We did this last year and *we* got it to work", and so on.
On the other hand, if it weren't for "dodgy" journals, a lot of final-year student projects wouldn't find their way into conference proceedings - a really good morale booster for overworked, underpaid students!
I think they've done the right thing. Bringing the barriers to access down is a good thing. Hell, if they want free access with a perr-reviewed ratings system, they could always use Slashcode...
Woohoo! Now, when I receive my bank statement / credit card demand / birthday cards / electricity bill about FOUR DAYS AFTER IT WAS POSTED from a town TWNETY MILES AWAY, I'll be able to interact with an inch-square piece of paper stuck to the front of it.
Whoever thought this was a good way to spend money was a fool. Give it to our postmen, who are constantly striking because they're paid pittance.
Remember anon.penet.fi?
This is even more depressing, because this time the company running the service has pre-empted the government pressure to shut down, and gone ahead and done it before the lawyers arrive.
Eek. DOes anyone else get the feeling that the terrorists might actually be winning?
> "The Nation's communications networks are
:)
> routinely used in the commission of serious
> criminal activities, including espionage."
Hmmm. So which large autonomous governmental organisations can we think of who do this...
> "The Carnivore device provides the FBI with
> a "surgical" ability to intercept and collect
> the communications which are the subject of the
> lawful order while ignoring those
> communications which they are not authorized to
> intercept."
Sure, it's surgical... in the same way that multiple amputations are surgical...
See:
m l
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/21916.ht
> > OK, I know governments can tax whatever they
:)
:)).
:)
> > want, whenever they want.
> no, they can't, as this story illustrates
Erm... it was the government that made the decision to declare the tax invalid. A less sensible government might well have decided the other way. Governments *make* the laws, remember. That's why we vote for them.
> this may be the moral justification for those
> taxes, but economically it doesn't work
In the case of addictive substances, no it doesn't work. But as you say, the policy-makers can use it as a powerful justification (moral highground AND economic sense to the uninitiated - NOW how much would you pay?)
> Fuel taxes don't really fall into this category
> in the long run
Burning petrolium in vehicles is bad for the environment and for society - thus, it should be taxed appropriately. I don't own a car because it's too expensive. Many of my friends own cars, but often use public transport instead because of the cost of fuel. (I am in England, where fuel is taxed about three times more than in the US.) I think the categorisation stands up fairly well, myself. The more you hurt the environment, the more you should pay (whether the money should go to the Government is a different matter
> Property should not be taxed, of course
No "of course" about it. Are you suggesting that indirect taxation is inferior to income taxes? In this country, the local authorities levy taxes on homeowners and businesses, in order to pay for local services (fire, police, landscaping, big cars for council executives, and so on).
> The flaw here is in thinking that "pure greed"
> is a bad thing
Did I say that? No. You haven't answered my original question - what is the justification? Satellites are almost always a social good, and companies who have the resources to put them into space should not be discouraged from doing so. If they bring in revenue for a local company, then in all likelihood that revenue is being taxed somewhere else.
Nope, still intact...
OK, I know governments can tax whatever they want, whenever they want. But there's usually a reason. For example, property taxes pay for local amenities and police. Vehicle taxes pay for the upkeep of roads and traffic signals, and the building of new ones. Direct taxes such as income tax and corporation tax pay for lots of stuff, mainly public goods such as defence, civil servants' wages, etc.
The other main use of taxation is as a disincentive to some activity or other (such as smoking and drinking, or in the case of fuel taxation, driving).
Why tax satellites? The space they orbit in requires no expenditure to maintain, and there's no reason to try putting people off launching satellites, because it costs many millions of pounds/dollars.
Apart from pure greed, what's the justrification behind such a proposal?
> WorldCom said it will operate Rhythms' network
> assets in 31 markets and will have the right to
> use assets in 709 telephone companies' central
> offices and at Rhythms' Englewood, Colorado
> headquarters.
Sounds to me like they got a good deal. DSL is not a long-term solution to broadband access provision, so you might immediately think "why would anyone voluntarily lumber themselves with a soon-to-be-obsolete infrastructure?". But the right of access to all that existing CO plant is worth a lot more to them. They'll be grateful of it once they move beyond the limits of the current twisted pair local loop.
This theory seems more plausible for the fact that most (all?) of Rhythm's customers have already left the service. Usually when one service provider takes over from another they inherit some sort of customer base, goodwill etc... but in this case, there is little (none?).
In the meantime, they can probably make back most of that money by getting themselves organised and charging a sensible price for DSL. But I rather fear that too many customers have already got burned and will switch to cable, or wait for fibre, or even just wait to see what the market looks like in a years time (that's the attitute that *really* pisses off telcos!).
Of course if I'd read to the bottom of the article, I'd have noticed that Sony themselves have release a Linux development kit, primarily for games developers. Seems rather out of character.
I don't suppose there's a driver for the BBA ethernet card currently existing; that seems to be the next logical step. Once the TCP/IP stack's up and running, things take off.
1 371000/1371527.stm
Also... much more interesting was the report in June e.g.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_
that you can do the same thing on the Playstation. Anyone know how long it'll be before the PS-2 has Linux support? And after that, how long till Sony ban this sort of thing?
Of course, I've never seen a Dreamcast at all - can you plug a keyboard into one of those things? 'cos I'm sure not doing any kernel hacking if I've got to enter letters off a rotating wheel using only left-right cursor movements on a control pad. That gave me enough trouble entering my initials in the arcades?
It's easy to get confused about quantum computers, because the media hype doesn't take into account the fact that you need at least two degrees (comp sci and physics) to understand it properly... guess what, I don't have these! But I do have the first, and my girlfriend has the second. :-)
/ vo l4/spb3/
Quantum cryptography itself is not an algorithm as such, but a way of using the inherent uncertainty in the polarisation of photons to ensure completely private communication. There are some labs which claim to have such a scheme working, but it's a long way from becoming feasible on a large scale.
Basically, it works on the principle that observation changes the observed event. You can ensure a secure (non-eavesdropped) channel by makeing sure that every photon has arrived correctly. If an intruder has observed your message, then the message itself has changed (at the quantum level)! I'm really not sure how it all works either, but there is plenty of published work.
The other crypto-related quantum computing thing is Shor's algorithm. For a reasonably good explanation:
http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~nd/surprise_97/journal
In essence, factorisation of large numbers (which is an NP complete problem on conventional hardware) can be done really quickly. This threatens RSA, Diffie-Hellman etc (anything which relies on the non-factorability of products of large primes).
I expect there's a similar "quantum" attack on symmetric encryption schemes like IDEA and DES, which would just do very fast brute force searches on the key space.
Hope this clears up some misconceptions!
> Are they putting a gun to your head and
;-)
> saying "buy our next round of products or die
> Scum!"?
They don't have to. They know that the vast majority of businesses cannot afford to switch away from their products, because they'll lose compatibility with the rest of the world.
All they have to do is subtly drop support for all their products which are older than, say, three years, and people are effectively forced to upgrade.
They say "everyone wants a common platform" and "it's just what happens with technological progress". We have other names for it
See for example: http://www.e-vue.com/about/may072001.cfm
One of the ways in which the MP4 standard is quite dumb is that the "security" features are an optional extra. You don't have to have lots of ornate key management policies and encrpytion schemes in order to enjoy the benefits of increased compression/versatility/whatever.
But (as we all know, I guess) that'll never work the way they think it should. This is simply because so long as there is an "insecure" standard for exchanging content (alongside the secured version), people who rip stuff off and share it with their friends will use it. The only ways you can stop that are: (a) pass an unenforcable law like the DMCA, or (b) get rid of all "insecure" standards. Solution b is not workable because everyday life would grind to a halt if everything had to be authenticated with military-grade encrpytion. So we're stuck with the laws (which, incidentally, don't necessarily go away once the companies which bought them go bust).
My conclusion is, therefore, by all means adopt MPEG-4 because in almost every other way, it rocks. Don't be scared by the "rights management" bullshit, because as long it's optional, it's worthless.
--
anonymous CVS: geeks check in - they don't check out
Actually, the incentive is still there. These people love what they do. It makes for good conversation... "So what do you do?" - "I design equipment for satellites" or "I get data beamed from a spacecraft millions of miles away straight to my desk/printer". You get your name in print in respected journals. You get to be a rocket scientist. The last thing you want is people going into research scientists in order to make money. Let's just say that would attract the wrong sort of person. :)
:))
But you're right, it's scandalous what some of the most intelligent and highly qualified people get paid. And it's a real *dis*-incentive for prospective graduates. If you could earn $80,000 writing Visual BASIC code for a bank, or sit in a dingy office with five other students (who probably smell) for $10,000 a year of government grant followed by having the career prospects of a cranefly, what ya gonna do?
(Bear in mind that I have no idea about the American scientific labour market, just the UK. And I'm translating currency very carelessly.
I'm sure there are plenty of ways to justify the $12m bill - the ground operation will already be fairly immense, and keeping it running costs money (admin staff, office space, hefty electricity bills etc). Mainly, I expect it goes to consultants and contractors, and on purchasing hardware from "military approved" vendors (i.e. the expensive ones).
In this country (UK), a post-doctoral space scientist at a top academic institution probably earns around 20,000 pounds PA if they're lucky (that's about $30,000, I think). If you consider that they'll be employed for maybe three years doing the data analysis and planning the next comet missions, a team of 20 scientists would account for $1.8m.
So I can see (almost) where they get the figure from. And it's probably quite easy to convince the funding bodies (is that the US public? I don't know how NASA do things) that comets are already lining up to take aim at the Earth, and we must learn more about them so we can work out a defence mechanism... sounds insane, but that's how a lot of science gets funded nowadays.
Me? I'd rather they built some hospitals in Africa.
When building the trunk networks (at least in the UK), most of the telcos have had close links with an existing utility, so their fibre backbones run along the railway, electricity grid, etc. When they install fibre-based SDH they do it alongside the existing (obsolete) copper-based PDH equipment, which also saves them a fortune. It makes sense to do the same thing with the access network (local loop) too.
:)
;-))
The problem over here is that the broadband rollout has only just started, it's not going very fast and it's unlikely to be nationwide for several years. And it's mostly being done using xDSL technology, to avoid having to lay any new infrastructure. Now xDSL is the least future-proof technology I have ever seen, and most of the telcos will admit this. Sure, they'll eventually lay fibre all the way to the curbside, and maybe into the home, but they insist on using the DSL stopgap solution.
I doubt very much that they will be using robots to do anything over here - it is still a notoriously lo-tec industry, whatever they try and tell you.
They had suggested using the existing electricity distribution system (actually transmitting over the same copper which carries the mains voltage), but they hit a snag - lamp-posts!! Because the best frequencies to use on copper (in terms of attenuation) just happen to co-incide with AM radio, and lamp-posts act as a big antenna... so all local AM radio would be screwed up. (Not that anyone would notice
For a good introduction to asynchronous system design, look at:
_ as ync.html
n %2 0Bus%20ISCAS96.pdf
http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/async/background/return
A paper I found interesting on this subject:
http://www.ee.ic.ac.uk/pcheung/publications/Asy
Enjoy... I've heard Sutherland speak and he's done some very interesting things; most notably, he invented the method of "logical effort" for the sizing of transistors, without which CPUs would be several orders of magnitude harder to optimise than they are today.
Hang on, did I hear that right?
:-\
We can't think of a practical purpose for the ability to communicate arbitrary information between two different PLANETS with an 8-minute delay?
There are still lots of practical uses of first-class mail, which takes about a day to deliver non-arbitrary information 50 miles!
It's certainly a situation which terrestrial communications haven't had to face up to very much; even current satellite relays only give a delay of a few seconds. The increased latency means you have to use better FEC techniques rather than relying on an ARQ retransmission system, but the basic principles are still due to Shannon (RIP).
Most of the trouble faced by communications software and hardware stems from operating in a regime of limited bandwidth or continuously changing router loading, rather than high delays. But as the article points out, scientists have adressed these problems on previous space missions, and the techniques are firming up to make the whole thing more interoperable.
Now we just need to work out how to colonise the planet, before we completely destroy our own one
Mod this guy up!
:). I further don't object paying for the distribution of the music to me (e.g. to my ISP). But it costs me about 17ukp for a CD (for those not in England, that's about the cost of 20 2L bottles of soft drink :-))! Something has to change.
As a non-earning musician, and a buyer of / listener to music, I cannot believe the approach the RIAA (et al) are taking to the "protection" of "their" intellectual "property".
There's lots of call for technology to protect information, because anything in digital format now has to be treated as extremely volatile - once it gets "out", there's no getting it back in. Here's a few examples of places where copy protection could be (but isn't) used:
* Governments & the military would dearly love to be able to keep their secrets from falling into the wrong hands. How do they do this? They try their hardest to hire responsible people they can TRUST and implement a strict heirarchy of control. Most countries have laws forbidding the betrayal of military secrets. They use encryption techniques. But they couldn't do their jobs efficiently if any sensitive material was copy-protected.
* Medical Records and other personal information - you don't want this falling into the wrong hands, but so long as you TRUST people (doctors) to keep it in the right hands, there's no problem and everyone can get on with their work.
* Examination Papers - if you're a lecturer/teacher and you prepare your examination digitally, you'll be wanting to ensure they're protected from the prying eyes of your students. In order to be used, you have to duplicate them.
So where do the record companies come in? Their product, I would argue, needs to be duplicated in order to be used (under the current concept of fair use); but they treat their customers as if each and every one of them is a criminal!
I don't object to paying for music - if I don't, I won't be provided with any more
I want free music, as in free speech. The technology exists to give it to me. The artists are happy to be heard, I'm happy to hear. But not everyone feels the same way. Most people are too used to the media selectively supplying them with whatever information they deem appropriate. They think they have choice, because they have 20 TV channels to watch! They don't see their freedom being undermined, and they won't buck the trend because they actually believe the big record producers' propoganda!
I need to calm down.
http://www.opencores.org/ Open source hardware. It's always going to be aimed at the people who buy semiconductor IP off vendors like ARM, and incorporate it into their designs. If they can get the VHDL source for free, rather than having to pay royalties every time they manufacture... Of course it's not aimed at joe@public.com.
Wires in macroscopic devices (even tiny ones) are maybe 0.1mm wide. Level 1 metal in a 0.18 micron CMOS process is 0.0008mm wide. They're very different ball games.
I don't believe a word of this. The hard and expensive part of making a chip is photolithography and ion-implantation, i.e. actually building a circuit on top of the subtrate. The reason that silicon is the most commonly used bulk for making chips isn't really because it is a "good" semiconductor - it's not at all! (Although its oxide SiO2 has some desirable properties which make the etching process easier to do on a large scale.)
:)
The reason they use silicon is because IT'S CHEAP! IT IS JUST (refined) SAND! Far better would be Gallium Arsenide or some similar compound. But that is orders of magnitude more expensive to do in volume (at the moment).
Flexible circuits?!? I'll believe that when I see it. You couldn't make any IC without using metal layers to route busses around at the higher levels (note: the metal which carries signals around between the transistors is a conductor, NOT a semiconductor!). So, until they find a substance which is flexible, a good conductor at operating temperatures AND which you can deposit on the rough surface of a thin wafer with deep sub-micron accuracy...
...I wouldn't invest in any startups claiming to pioneer this technology without reading the small print.
The problem is, you can't compare the processing power of a human brain with that of a computer - they're just too different. The machine I'm sitting at can do about 400,000,000 floating point multiplications in one second - that's more than I could do if I started now and didn't stop for the rest of my life! But it can't post intelligently on slashdot ;-)
I've had experience with AI and agent systems, and I still reckon that the place of a computer is as a tool for the human race, to do things that we can't do ourselves (see above). Just my 2c.
Of course, it won't be long before things have to go asynchronous - hyper-pinelining is all very well if you've got a nice clean architecture in the first place but it's not doing the 80x86 any real favours.
:)
People like Ivan Sutherland put a lot of work into the theories of asynchronous digital logic, indeed many array-based multipliers found in current uPs are locally asynchronous. Merging clock and data signals can make the control logic a lot more complicated, but do it properly and you can get certain functions going blindingly fast.
But of course without a MHz figure, the customers won't know what to buy...